1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the technical field of sonar scanning and more particularly to the use of personal microcomputers in sonar systems.
2. Description of Prior Art
Existing technology typically makes use of dedicated computers for sonar system control and display. These dedicated computers are ordinarily operated using firmware in programmable read only memory (PROM) chips. Display of sonar data using both wider display and paper recording mechanisms is known in the art. Existing sonar display devices also permit the display of navigational information from commercially available navigation systems. However data provided is simple latitude-longitude text readouts. Although some sonar systems are capable of simultaneously displaying both sonar data and navigation references, the displays are merely superimposed and do not provide graphical correlation of position and sonar data. Navigating to a sonar-identified mark conventionally requires the ship operator to keep a record of the ship's track, either manually or by use of a digital plotter, and then to estimate the time of sonar passage of a site of interest, and using the estimated time, calculate the latitude and longitude of the site. The operator then must calculate the relative position between the ship and the identified site and perform a manual navigation to the site separate from any sonar operations.
In addition to the lack of navigational data integration, current systems have a number of other deficiencies. Dedicated computer systems using firmware for computer operations are both expensive and inflexible in software modifications. The dedicated nature of the computer also causes a much slower upgrade cycle on the hardware itself. As a result, current sonar systems are both expensive and obsolete compared to state of the art general purpose computer systems.